ESCONDIDO: Council to decide whether planners must live in city

Should people living outside Escondido be making some of the city's most crucial land-use decisions?

Escondido City Council members are scheduled to debate that question Wednesday when they decide how many members of the city's Planning Commission should be allowed to live outside the city limits.

City regulations approved in 2007 allow only one of the commission's seven members to live outside Escondido, and that commissioner must live within a small area surrounding Escondido that's called the city's sphere of influence.

But the council will discuss a proposal Wednesday to allow three commissioners to live within the sphere of influence. The goal is to allow recent appointee Gregory Johns, who lives outside the city on Park Hill Lane, to join the commission.

In addition, the change would make two longtime commissioners who live outside the city limits fully legal members. The two men, Jeff Weber and Bob McQuead, were "grandfathered" in when the council decided to limit the number of out-of-towners to one in 2007.

On Tuesday, Councilwoman Marie Waldron said she opposes increasing the maximum to three.

"We want to limit it to city residents as much as possible," she said. "They're determining the fate of the city of Escondido."

"It just seems like a technicality to me," said Abed. "If they're within the sphere of influence, they don't mentally see themselves living outside Escondido."

Abed said the recent
merger
of the city's Design Review Board into the Planning Commission made finding quality commissioners even more important. Commissioners have added evaluating architectural quality and historical preservation to their previous focus on land-use compatibility.

The goal of the merger was to boost local economic activity by streamlining the approval of projects.

Abed said his only concern was that people living outside the city could have different perspectives on some topics, particularly decisions related to annexing neighborhoods into the city.

But Darol Caster, another longtime commissioner who lives within the city, said the commission discusses annexation requests only on rare occasions, and that out-of-town commissioners recuse themselves when any potential conflict of interest arises.

Waldron said she wants Johns to be allowed on the commission and for Weber and McQuead to remain. But she wants the maximum to remain one, and for Weber and McQuead to remain grandfathered exceptions.

"We didn't want to change the rules and affect the people who were already serving," said Waldron, explaining why the council allowed the exemptions in 2007.

The council exempted a third out-of-town commissioner back then, but Jack Campbell resigned from the board recently.

The merger of the two panels was criticized by some because they had such different functions.

The Planning Commission used to evaluate projects based just on appropriate land use, zoning and density, such as whether a restaurant should open next to a mortuary. The Design Review Board evaluated a project's architecture and appearance, such as color scheme and window treatments.

Caster, who was replaced as commission chairman by Weber this spring, said it was too early to tell whether the merged panel would effectively handle its increased duties.